


The Saltpool

by ErtheChilde



Series: The Shortest Life [8]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Action/Adventure, City Elf Origin, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, Survival, bits in between, separated from the TARDIS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-11 22:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3335639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErtheChilde/pseuds/ErtheChilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A trip to explore some ancient ruins becomes a fight for survival when the Doctor and Rose land in Ferelden during the Fifth Blight. Separated from the TARDIS, they find refuge in the isolated port town of Gwaren. There they meet Darrian Tabris, a survivor of the offensive at Ostagar, and Lilian, a proud and headstrong resident of Gwaren, both of whom are chafing under the lawlessness of the town since it was abandoned by its ruler. As the monsterous horde of darkspaw continues to approach, the Doctor and Rose find themselves trying to save an entire town from a threat that can only be stopped by an order of warriors that has been all-but eradicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Beta Reader(s):
> 
> None at the moment, so any mistakes are my own and will be fixed later.
> 
> Disclaimer:
> 
> This story utilizes characters, situations and premises that are copyright the BBC and Bioware. No infringement on their respective copyrights pertaining to episodes, novelizations, comics or short stories is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan oriented story is written solely for the author's own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All fiction, plot and Original Characters with the exception of those introduced in the books and graphic novels, are the sole creation of ErtheChilde and using them without permission is considered rude, in bad-taste and will reflect seriously on your credibility as a writer. You may end up fed to darkspawn in response.
> 
> Warning:
> 
> Spoilers: If it existed in any form of Doctor Who canon, whether television, novelization, or graphic novel, it’s probably going to be mentioned here. For this particular fic, certain events from Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II will be mentioned, particularly following the destruction of Lothering and prior to the flight of the Hawke family.
> 
> Canadian Writing British: As a Canadian, I am not all-knowing when it comes to British idioms, sayings or sang. I write what sounds right to my ears and when in doubt, I look things up on the Internet. So I might not always get it right. If I’m way off about something please drop me a line and I’ll correct it.

**_ The Saltpool  
_ ** **_by ErtheChilde_ **

_‘Fear makes companions of all of us. Fear is with all of us, and always will be. Just like that other sensation that lives with it: Hope.’_

**ONE**

‘Are you sure we left Earth?’ Rose Tyler asked, holding open the TARDIS door and peering into the world beyond it. ‘Cos this place doesn’t look any different from the middle of Hyde Park to me.’

‘Yes, I’m sure we left Earth,’ the Doctor scowled, coming up behind her and sticking his head out the door. He inhaled deeply, then checked his watch, and nodded. ‘Yep. Completely different atmospheric make-up out there. Still breathable to you, of course, but different tang to it. Not Earth.’

Rose took another look around the forest they had landed in, and this time she wondered how should have mistaken it for Hyde Park. Although she had spent summers wandering through shaded and green areas that sometimes felt like another world, the feeling was really nothing compared to sense of _otherness_ that permeated the air here. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and she couldn’t quite put it into words.

Mist lay low along the mossy ground and trees towered above them, growing thickly together and hunched downward like old men bending to share their stories. Strange creaking noises echoed through the sound of water falling in the distance, the noise a bit like slowly moving wood.

‘Alright then,’ she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her uneasiness at this place. She pasted a teasing grin on her face. ‘But if we run into any signs for the Underground a ways on, you owe me that trip to London in the Sixties.’ She jabbed a finger at him. ‘I know you say the TARDIS doesn’t like that time period, but I think it’s just you who’s avoiding it.’

‘I’ll have you know I got the coordinates exactly right this time,’ the Doctor sniffed. ‘The southern lands of Ancient Thedas. The Brecilian Forest, though we’ve arrived before it’s called that. Way before arbitrary borders and naming things that don’t need names and other human nonsense. It’s all just forest now.’

‘Oh. So humans are gonna come here too, then?’

‘Don’t sound so disappointed,’ the Doctor declared.

‘I’m not! Just…surprised is all. So many of the places we go, you’d think we’d run into fewer humans,’ Rose explained. ‘Huge universe and everything.’

‘Well, you lot are notoriously good at breeding. A bit like rats.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I like rats,’ the Doctor protested. ‘In moderation. And not while carrying the bubonic plague – you know, by the 30th century, the only species that don’t go extinct on your planet are rats and humans? You outlive cockroaches – and they’ve been around at least 400 million years longer than you.’

‘Rats and cockroaches,’ Rose sighed. ‘Again, thanks.’ She looked around the thickly forested area. ‘So what’s so great about this planet, then?’

‘Loads,’ the Doctor proclaimed knowingly. ‘Nice scenery, no xenophobic aliens bent on enslaving foreign species, fascinating collection of ancient temples – though right now they’re not really ancient, they’re new, which is why I brought you here.’

‘Temples to what?’

‘This early? No idea!’ the Doctor declared gleefully. ‘Thought we’d find out together. Records about this time period are a bit vague, but there’s probably something to do with ancient gods or magic or whatnot.’

‘What, really?’ Rose’s eyes widened.

‘What the indigenous people believe to be magic and what humans called it when they arrived here,’ the Doctor answered, dismissive.

‘But is it really?’

‘Is it really what?’

‘Really magic.’

‘Come now, Rose Tyler, haven’t you ever heard of Clarke’s Law?’

‘Nope.’

‘Basically, magic is just science you don’t understand yet,’ the Doctor told her. ‘And when I say you, I mean your species. I understand everything.’

‘Liar!’

‘Am not!’

‘Alright, then, so what’s magic?’

‘Depends on where you end up,’ the Doctor shrugged. ‘Sometimes it’s the result of alien technological enhancement, or strong psychic abilities, or mutations – sometimes the humans who land in a place aren’t as human as they pretend, if you catch my meaning, and their abilities manifest recessively. In every case I’ve encountered, though, it tends to just boil down to the clever manipulation of energy molecules and a little bit of mucking with probabilities.’ 

Rose frowned. ‘But you said that’s bad.’

‘It is when it affects things on a temporal level, but by itself it’s a completely different animal. Small scale, really, rarely affect anything in the big picture,’ he said, as they exited the TARDIS and he began to lock up. ‘Although…’ he stared up at the sky, his gaze going distant the way it sometimes did when he was looking at something she wasn’t able to see. ‘I think there’s something meant to happen here. Soon.’

‘What?’

‘Dunno. Couldn’t tell you without checking the timelines,’ he said, and then frowned to himself as though he had said that without meaning to. 

There was a hint of pain in the look, the same one she saw whenever he thought of his people or the War, and so she tried to distract him.

‘This place is a bit creepy,’ she informed him, looking around for some indication of which way they should go. There were several paths away from the clearing where they had landed, and they all looked equally ominous. ‘It also feels…wrong. Like there’s some kind of sound underneath the forest sounds, yeah? Sort of like –’

‘The silent echoes of thousands of deaths.’

Something cold crackled up Rose’s spine and she turned to gape at the Doctor in shock and surprise. She felt an uneasy fear – not at his expression, which had suddenly turned grim and fathomless – but because his words were exactly the ones she had been grasping for but unable to find.

‘Y-yeah.’

‘This isn’t good. If it’s thick enough that even you can pick up on it…’ he murmured, still not seeing her. ‘I’m sorry, Rose…I thought I’d arrived before all this. Before this place became the graveyard of hundreds of wars. I wanted to bring you here while it was still just a beautiful forest. But we’re after. And the Veil here has been torn for so long…’

‘Veil?’ Rose interrupted, panic beginning to break through her forced-calm. The Doctor looked ill and…scared. She’d never seen him look like this before. ‘Doctor, what are you – ?’

‘We need to leave here,’ the Doctor told her, grabbing hold of her hand and practically dragging her toward the TARDIS. ‘If I got the landing so wrong, we might have accidentally landed during –’

His words cut off, at the same time that he abruptly stopped walking – so abruptly that Rose bumped into him. His hand reached out to steady her – or perhaps to keep her back – and when she glanced over his shoulder, she saw exactly why.

Out of the foliage beside the TARDIS, a horrific creature was lumbering forward. Rose’s brain struggled to come up with words for it, but every description failed to apply. It might have once been a bear, but now…

Although her experience with bears was limited to creatures she had seen in zoos, she knew instinctively that this one was bigger than any type of Earth bear ever got to be. Enormous, bony spikes protruded from its fur – possibly from beneath it, if the bleeding, open-wounds were any indication – and it moved like something in constant pain. It was also clearly sick, judging from the vacant, puss-filled eyes and horrendous smell that wafted their way with every shift of its humongous form.

‘Doctor…’ she whispered, a question and a search for reassurance as her eyes flitted to the TARDIS. There was no way they could get inside of it with the creature there, and as unwieldy as its movements were, she had a suspicion that it was faster than it looked.

The Doctor’s hand, still keeping her at bay, slowly found hers and he held it tightly – not the usual reassuring squeeze, but something vice-like and urgent, almost the way she remembered her mother holding her hand when she nearly ran into traffic when she was little.

‘Be very quiet,’ he told her, his voice a dangerous sort of calm that told her he was genuinely worried about whatever this creature was. ‘When I say “run”, run faster you ever have in your life. If it gets close to you, don’t let it bite, scratch or even bleed on you.’

Rose didn’t get the chance to point out that if it got that close to her, she wouldn’t have to worry about it.

The Doctor’s grip painfully and he shouted, ‘RUN!’, before turning and hauling her off in the opposite direction from the TARDIS.

Behind them, the creature bellowed terribly and came after them.

· ΘΣ ·

‘Hey! You there! Knife-Ear!’

Darrian Tabris gritted his teeth, his grip on the mop in his hands tightening painfully at the drunken shout echoing across the dank insides of the tavern. The slur couldn’t be meant for anyone else – he was the only elf there – but that didn’t necessarily mean he had to answer it.

‘I’m talking to you! Get your arse over here!’

_Evidently not as lucky as I’d like,_ he thought bitterly and schooled his face into an expression of open curiosity.

Straightening up, he shuffled over to the table in the darkest corner of the bar, where a trio of regulars were throwing dice and emptying their drinks. It was the usual assortment of loggers and fishermen, whiling away their free time and spending all the coin they had earned before they returned to their livelihood.

‘How may I help you, sers?’ he asked, congratulating himself on politeness that only sounded slightly forced.

‘Settle a bet for us, rabbit,’ the nearest man, a squat merchant with a face like a potato and the colouring of a beat chortled. ‘Did your mother rut with a Chasind savage to give you that skin-colour? Or have you just never taken a bath in your life?’

The merchant’s cronies roared with laughter, and Tabris took a steadying breath through his nose. He had heard much worse in his life – indeed, growing up in the Alienage in Denerim had shown him just how much insult he could bear and how to hold his tongue up to that point – but it would be a lie to say he wasn’t tired of it. 

His looks had been a sore spot most of his life. He had an uncommon visage, especially for an elf and a Fereldan. While most of his kind were pale-skinned and slim, he had inherited his mother’s dark colouring and strong bones. Although the merchant had been crude about it, his mother’s ancestors had hailed from Rivaini and they were all much darker there. It was something he had been teased about all through his childhood and he had forever envied his younger sister Kallian for taking after their father’s looks. However then, as now, he refused to rise to the bait.

There was too much likelihood in a possible prison sentence that might come from demanding satisfaction from his tormentors. He could easily trounce all three of them, but in recent weeks the regent had issued a decree that prohibited elves from carrying weapons in Gwaren, whether they were native to the town’s Alienage or not.

Coupled with the look he was getting from Ludwig over at the bar, the safest bet was to not jeopardize the job that was ensuring he wouldn’t starve to death in the coming winter.

And so, despite the retort ready on his tongue concerning the merchant’s mother getting creative with a big, he forced himself to speak graciously through clenched teeth.

‘Can I get you a refill?’ he asked, by-passing the question entirely. It seemed the safest bet.

‘Oh, come now, elf, don’t be so prim and proper,’ the second man, a burly logger, chortled. ‘Or is that just your way? Would certainly explain a lot, if the rumours are true.’

‘What rumours?’ asked the third man.

‘I heard our friend here was at Ostagar.’

‘No! The rabbit?’ the first man snorted derisively, eyes flicking over Tabris again. ‘Let me guess – you’re a deserter. Saw the darkspawn and turned tail, yeah?’

‘Aw, don’t be that way Flynn – can’t fault the bastard for having the brains,’ the second one pointed out. ‘Maybe if the King and the Grey Wardens had had a few more brains among them, they’d’ve lived.’

‘Can’t speak for the King, but everyone knows the Wardens were working with the Orlesians to get the King out of the way. Didn’t count on the Teryn making it out though, did they?’

Tabris swiftly turned and left them to their discussion now that they seemed to have forgotten about him, drawn instead into a drunken political debate. The assertions about the late King Cailan and the Grey Wardens irked him almost as much as the comments about his parentage and looks.

He had been at Ostagar, it was true. And he had seen with his own eyes exactly what had happened that night. 

The memory of it all still haunted his dreams. 

It was why working in a bar had seemed the best place for him, after everything. Even if he had to pay through the nose for it, he had access to enough of the good ale that he could knock himself out on the nights he really needed the rest.

He ducked behind the bar.

‘Are you antagonizing the customers again?’ Ludwig demanded, although he kept his smiling face turned on their patrons. ‘If I get a complaint from them about you, that’s a copper off your wage.’

‘Add it to my tab,’ Darrien grumbled as he headed to the keg in the back to fill it with more ale that the three drunks definitely didn’t need.  In a lower tone, so that Ludwig couldn’t hear him, he added, ‘Though if you take much more, I’ll be paying you to work…’

Not for the first time since arriving in town did he curse his need to be there.

The port settlement of Gwaren was a remote place in the south easternmost corner of Fereldan, past the ominous and dangerous Brecelian Forest where it was said even the trees had a taste for murder and rumours of apostates abounded. A hardy town, full of loggers and fishermen, Gwaren was accessible to the rest of the country only by ship or the narrow, dangerous pass through the forest. The remoteness ensured that the town had no need of walls or other defences – the unforgiving rocky cliffs and harsh seas provided that well enough. 

It also ensured that Tabris constantly felt chilled by the damp cold in the air.

The town itself was spread along that craggy shore, a veritable maze of cobbled streets and plaster-covered brick. Once upon a time he had heard that the town square used to be filled with merchants selling their wares, brightly coloured bolts of cloth and barrels of foreign delicacies, but now it was rare to see anything like that. Every house or place of business bore remnants of fire damage from battles long past, and Tabris swore that everywhere he went smelled faintly of fish. 

_The Mabari’s Maw_ was one of the seedier taverns that operated just within the environs of the town, and sadly it was the only place that had been willing to hire a stranger – and an elf, at that – right off the street. 

Ludwig, the tavern’s owner and barman, was barrel-chested and unlike most humans, almost as short as Tabris. He had thinning black hair, beady eyes and teeth like a horse, which he always displayed in what he thought was a charming smile but came off as a perverse leer. He was a miser who had been stiffing Tabris’s wages and treating him like a slop bucket since he arrived there, but a job was a job.

_And yet, working here, I’m still better off than most_ , Tabris reflected glumly. He had a room at the tavern, which meant he didn’t have to stay in Gwaren’s cramped Alienage, or camp outside the city where the living conditions had gotten worse as more refuges flocked to the town. 

Gwaren, which had once been a great and successful port town, had fast become burdened by waves of refugees fleeing the oncoming darkspawn horde. With the Blight spreading so quickly through Ferelden, there were few places to completely escape its devastation. People lucky enough to live on the more northerly freeholds could take their pick of ports to hire passage to other, safer parts of Thedas. Down in the south, however, closer to the oncoming darkspawn horde, Gwaren was the only hope.

Considering there was no way to reach the town except through the perilous path straight through the Brecilian Forest, one would think there wouldn’t be that many refugees able to make it there. However, after the massacre at Ostagar, more and more people had decided to take their chance with the nomadic Dalish if it meant escaping Ferelden faster.

For weeks now, refugees had started to gather outside the town because the regent wasn’t allowing people inside. Disease and crime ran rampant in the temporary settlement beyond the town line, and its seedier elements were bleeding into Gwaren proper despite the regent’s restrictive efforts. That didn’t even touch on the fact that the number of darkspawn roaming the forest and area beyond the keep was increasing.

On top of all that, the local militia had begun to take liberties with the law.

_Speaking of_ , Tabris thought, pausing when he heard a noise outside. He could make out a voice crying out in pain, and raucous laughter echoing in the narrow alley that the tavern was built on.

He took a step toward the front door, intending to investigate, but paused when Ludwig sneered, ‘Where d’you think you’re going?’

‘I’m going to go see what’s –’

‘You’re not paid to care about what’s going on out there – you’ve got floors to clean and ale to serve.’

‘Yeah, but –’

‘D’you know how many people are out there, begging door to door for a job?’ Ludwig interrupted. ‘You could be out on your arse like _that_.’ He snapped his finger in Tabris’s face. ‘You’ve got nowhere to go but this place – and the cutthroats in town might not want to bother with a penniless knife-ear, but the darkspawn’ll take you all the same.’

Tabris swallowed down an angry retort and nodded.

The pungent little human was right. 

If he wanted to make enough money to book passage back to Denerim, he had to put up with a few things he might not normally. 

His shoulders relaxed in defeat, and Ludwig smirked in recognition of this.

‘There’s a good lad,’ he said, clapping him on the back. ‘Now get back to work – and make sure to tell those louts over there that the rates are going up tomorrow. An extra silver for everything.’

Disgust roiled in Tabris’s stomach.

 ‘What? Why? If you do that, at least half the people in the city won’t be able to afford to eat here,’ Tabris protested.

‘Got to make a living somehow,’ Ludwig shrugged.

‘You’re already making a living! There’s no reason for you to raise the cost of anything, except for outright greed!’

‘Hey, boy, you don’t run this place, I do – and I don’t need any advice about making money from some guttersnipe from Denerim, hear?’

‘But people will starve!’

‘Not my lookout. They’re in their situation because of their own choices. If they wanted to eat, they wouldn’t’ve left their lands to mooch off us Maker-fearing folk.’

Tabris stared at him, trying to justify the man’s words in his mind.

It wasn’t even an unexpected attitude, coming from Ludwig; not really. He’d heard and witnessed much worse from the man. But perhaps he had finally reached his breaking point, because at that point Tabris realized that he couldn’t handle another day spent in this dunghill.

‘I’m finished with you,’ he said, and turned to leave the bar.

‘Hey! You can’t just leave!’

‘Watch me!’

‘You walk out that door, boy, you might well not come back here. And I won’t be paying you this week’s wage, either.’

‘Wasn’t expecting you to,’ Tabris retorted, stepping outside the tavern and slamming the heavy door behind him.

Despite now being without a job and without lodging – he bet Ludwig would have his room rented out to the next slob that walked through the doors, and at full price – he felt as though a giant weight had been lifted from his shoulders. 

_Right, need to find a new way back to Denerim_ , he decided. There was another cry from around the corner and he frowned. _But first, let’s see what’s going on over there…_

· ΘΣ ·

_Stupid, stupid, stupid!_

The word repeated itself ad infinitum within the Doctor’s mind as he dragged Rose through the treacherous forest pathways, dodging through vines and leaping over logs in an effort to escape the creature that hunted them. Even several yards ahead of it, he could still smell the rancid, rotting meat stench of its breath tinged with the sickly, sour odour if disease.

Amid all the frantic planning he was doing as they ran, trying to think of plausible ways to get back to the TARDIS without getting up close and personal with the beast pursuing them, he was also kicking himself.

Once again he’d trusted the oft inaccurate computer readings and thought he’d landed Rose somewhere scenic – instead, he’d landed her in a haunted forest right in the path of what looked to be a bereskarn.

He only hoped that it was an anomaly, and not an indication that he had landed her on Thedas in the midst of a Blight.

_Doesn’t even matter which one, they’re all known to be bloody unpleasant_ , he decided.

Definitely not the kind of adventure he would ever knowingly bring her on, especially considering the danger presented by the infectious epidemic that embodied such a period. The tainted bear hunting them was the least of their problems, and yet if either of them contracted it, it wouldn’t matter how much the TARDIS background radiation could boost their immune systems.

There was no cure to this particular infection that he had ever heard of.

Beside him, Rose staggered, and he barely managed to keep her upright and still moving.

‘Don’t think…I can keep this up…much longer,’ she panted.

‘You’re fine – you can do it!’ he told her, despite knowing that even humans who were trained for long distance sprints could only carry on at their optimal speed for so long. Rose was in shape thanks to their very active life, but she was nowhere near an Olympic athlete – and unlike him, she would lag soon.

The Doctor clenched his jaw.

Rose falling behind was not an option.

Eyes flitting around for anything that could help them out of this situation, his brain whirred, weighing and discarding dozens of creative solutions based on any number of criteria, including mathematical probability of success. The bear itself was a slow one – probably hindered by the sheer amount of trees and other obstacles in its way, and possibly by how much the disease had progressed. If it had just been infected, he and Rose would have been dead before they turned to run. His eyes took in the gaps in the trees as they sped by, scanned ahead to the ones in the distance that they would soon pass.

‘Need you to trust me,’ he ordered. ‘No matter what happens – no matter what your instinct tells you to do, you keep running – one foot in front of the other, okay?’

‘Yeah!’ she wheezed, becoming more breathless the farther they went.

The tainted bear was gaining.

_Based on the estimated weight of a fully-grown bear, taking into account blood-loss and emaciation, progression of the taint, turning radius versus its momentum –_

‘Now!’ he bit out, his thoughts grinding to a halt as he abruptly tightened his grip on Rose’s hand and swung her around as he suddenly veered left. His reflexes were naturally conditioned to make sudden changes in direction without sacrificing balance or traction, but hers weren’t. He could feel her tugging at his wrist, trying to use him as balance and to keep her footing as he pulled her into a different pathway.

She came within centimetres of knocking into a tree, but to her credit, kept running without pause.

The Doctor heard the bereskarn crashing and skidding off to the side in the distance, and let out a short bark of triumphant laughter. They’d bought a few precious minutes for themselves. If they could just double back to the TARDIS now – 

The path he had led them into abruptly stopped, leading into a flat rock face.

The Doctor cursed, but didn’t allow that to stop them. The bear would recover itself soon, and if they couldn’t outrun it, they could at least make it more difficult for it to follow them.

‘Come on!’ he ordered, leading her up the rough, hilly terrain that bordered the path on either side. They would have to do this the hard way.

The tainted bear was snarling again behind them, once again having picked up their scent, and he pushed Rose ahead of him. If worse came to worse, he could at least distract it, lead it away from her, come back after and – 

He was getting ahead of himself. 

For agonizing almost a third of an hour, they continued to run aimlessly through the woods, narrowly avoiding roots tripping them and knocking into trees. Occasionally it seemed like the bear had given up, only for it to suddenly regain its interest and pursue them anew. 

He and Rose ducked under fallen logs and tree stumps, any attempt to slow down their persistent stalker. It didn’t seem to matter, however, because it continued to blunder after them, crushing hollow logs beneath its paws and roaring in pained rage at them.

‘It’s not going to stop!’ the Rose gasped, once they had covered at least two miles. Her entire body was shaking now, desperate for oxygen she didn’t have time to take in, and the Doctor’s own respiratory bypass was threatening to kick in.

He knew she was right.

The beast would likely chase them until it lost all its blood and died of exhaustion – but not before Rose’s energy gave out. If they could just get enough distance between them that he could get them up a tree, or – 

Something caught his attention beyond the nearest copse of trees.

He could see the edge of the forest, and beyond that – hope sprang within him – the fortifications of medieval style manor. Trappings of civilization that might just mean salvation for Rose…and himself.

‘That way!’ he ordered her. ‘Just a little farther, Rose!’

‘Yeah!’

Despite the reassurance, he didn’t like the note of exhaustion in her voice.

He heard sound of claws whistling through the air behind him as the beast tried to get at them, and could feel the displacement in the molecules that it was much closer than he had expected.

They burst past the forest line, skidding along tall grasses that were no longer hiding thick roots and remained free of trees and low shrubs. The stone manor he had seen was at the highest point of the settlement, overlooking the town not unlike an overbearing bat. Beyond it, he could make out an expanse of grey horizon and sea, where several ships were coming to and from the port.

There were no walls of any sort around the manor or the town, but he could make out a small collection of tents and temporary lean-to structures that suggested people were actually living outside the keep. 

Which meant that even if the Doctor and Rose managed to make it to safety there, the creature might simply decide to choose an easier meal.

Rose seemed to realize this as well, because she exclaimed, ‘Doctor! We can’t – we can’t lead it there – the people – !’

But there were no other options. Cliffs and rocks surrounded the town on all sides, and the harbour was beyond the walls. There was no way to avoid bringing the creature to what looked like a tent-city, without turning tail and trying to get back into the forest without it getting to them.

They could try another quick direction change, but he didn’t see it working another time.

Integral seconds were ticking by, and again he couldn’t think of any plan short of telling Rose to run and offering himself up to the creature as bait.

There was a flurry of sound and movement ahead, and his hearts rose at the sight over several figures amassing in front of the makeshift settlement, many carrying axes, longbows and crossbows. 

He wasn’t a fan of weapons being pointed at him in normal circumstances, but decided to make an exception just this once.

A volley of arrows and bolts suddenly erupted into the air, and the Doctor moved instinctually. 

‘Get down!’ he yelled, shoving Rose down to the ground and rolling them out of the path of death from both the countless projectiles and the beast pursuing them. 

The sound of steel and wood penetrating flesh filled the air briefly, only to be drowned out by the bereskarn’s enraged and agonized roars. A sharp, burning pain suddenly flared from the vicinity of his right thigh, but he ignored it in favour of getting himself and Rose out of the danger zone.

Another volley of arrows and bolts, this time accompanied by several of the axe-wielding individuals he had seen. Most of them were human, but there were a fair few shorter ones – dwarves, if his xenobiology was correct. 

These individuals set upon the moaning creature, which continued to swipe angrily at its assailants despite the blood that poured from the growing number of wounds being inflicted on it. 

The Doctor ensured that Rose couldn’t see any of what was happening. Although he knew that death was the only cure to the poor beast that had come after him, it didn’t mean she should witness it.

Other people appeared, more of them wielding long bows, and one of them moved straight into the path of the beresekarn and shot it point blank in the head.

It let out a final, wheezing, snarl and drop heavily to the ground.

One of the dwarves turned to face the Doctor and Rose, eyes hard and axe raised threateningly, as though his enemy wasn’t yet vanquished.

· ΘΣ ·

‘What do you mean, you’re not coming?’

Lilian Fen’Harel narrowed her eyes at her cousins, chiefly conscious of how they were avoiding her gaze.

‘It’s just getting too dangerous,’ Diantha said apologetically.

‘ _Getting_?’ Lilian repeated. ‘It was always dangerous.’

‘Yes, but now…they’re getting rougher,’ Arianna stated, shifting uncomfortably. ‘Before, the people were not so desperate. Now, every time we go out, we risk being overwhelmed. I still have bruises from the last time.’

‘Besides, now there is no way of knowing if any of the refugees have come in contact with the darkspawn. If they are infected and we contract it...’

‘We’re not saying we don’t still want to help – just, from a distance,’ Arianna insisted. ‘We can still prepare the extra supplies and gear from here, and have one of the sentries bring it out. It would only cost a few extra coppers.’

‘Oh, yes, let’s pass on our goods to the _shem_ militia,’ Lilian snapped, furious. ‘They’ll bring it to the refugees, alright – and then sell to whoever will pay the highest price, elven or not. You know what they’re like! If they don’t decide to keep everything for themselves!’

‘ _Ir_ _abelas_ , cousin, but it’s just becoming too risky,’ Diantha sighed. ‘We knew when we started this that we wouldn’t be able to do it forever. Eventually, we will barely have enough cloth and food for our own people, let alone the poor souls outside the gate.’

‘We do not all have your connections,’ Arianna added, a slight edge to her tone.

Lilian didn’t ask what she meant.

Unlike most of the elves in the Alienage, Lilian had grown up well-off. She and her sister Erlina had been playmates to Teryn Loghain Mac Tir’s daughter Anora, and when the latter moved to Denerim to marry King Cailan, Erlina had gone with her as her personal handmaiden. As such, Lilian had the ear of the queen in a way not many elves did, and she had become a respected member of the community because of it.

Because of this, she felt it was her duty to watch over her people when others would not.

Ever since the refugees started flocking to Gwaren, Lilian and her cousins had paid special attention to the elven refugees that arrived. Already considered second-class citizens in Ferelden, elves were even less well-thought-of by their human peers during times of hardship. For all their preaching about Andraste and the Maker, even the Chantry tended to concentrate on human kind first. 

As such, it was her job to ensure that no more elves fell through the cracks than they had to. She had enlisted her cousins to help her in this venture, and so far they had been more than willing.

Until today.

‘Very well,’ she said, hefting the heavy basket in her arms. It was filled with knitted socks and scarves, as well as packages of herbs and dried food that she had managed to collect during the week. An impressive feat, considering the Alienage was usually only allocated the leavings of the rest of the town. ‘Give your contributions to me, I will bring them out of the town.’

‘Lilian, you can’t be earnest!’ Diantha protested. ‘You can’t go out there alone!’

‘There’s not much choice. There will be frost tonight, and I know several of the families have small children without the right gear,’ Lilian replied loftily. ‘Unless you’d like to change your minds.’

Diantha looked close to giving in, but Arianna set her jaw and passed over several packages for Lilian to add to her basket.

‘Your efforts are admirable, but we must look to our own now,’ she told her. ‘Maker keep you safe.’

‘And you,’ she returned stiffly, leaving without looking back. Anger and frustration warred for supremacy within her, as well as a feeling of betrayal. Her cousins were only the latest in a long line of friends and family that had decided they were better of remaining safe at home rather than going out to help the less fortunate refugees outside of the town.

She could understand why, of course, but that didn’t make it better.

Proud by nature, Lilian was utterly disgusted with how bad conditions in Gwaren had gotten since the Teryn left. The man he had left in charge was barely competent, and it showed in how the milita had begun to abuse their power in the man’s absence. 

She had only just past the gate and the sentries guarding the Alienage when she heard a commotion down one of the alley-ways. It sounded like a child crying out, followed by the very recognizable sound of a hand striking flesh.

Considering there were no residences down that alley that she knew of, a suspicion began to form in her mind as to what was happening.

Gwaren’s guard force had begun by mistreating the refugees to the town, but in recent weeks they had started to treat the townsfolk in the same way – especially the elven citizens. They would seize food and other rations as they liked from them, insisting that elves didn’t need as much food as humans. 

She didn’t think twice before heading down the alley, hoping that just the sight of another person might make the difference – or at least cause a distraction. 

As she expected, upon turning a corner into one of the back alleys, she saw a group of guardsmen gathered around a young elven boy who couldn’t be more than twelve. The lad look terrified and was stammering something like an apology, when one of the guards reached out and cuffed him across the ear.

‘Say it properly, knife-ear,’ the man growled. 

‘I h-humbly ap-apologize if I have g-given you offense, s-ser,’ the boy managed. 

He was cuffed again. ‘Stop snivelling!’

Lilian felt her basket drop to the floor, her hand going for the dagger she always carried at her belt. She knew she didn’t have much of a chance against three armed soldiers, but she was fast enough that she could cause enough of a distraction for the boy to get away. After that, she’d figure something out and – 

‘Oh, now, this isn’t fair,’ a voice piped up, and she saw another person saunter around the opposite corner of the alley. It was another elf, she was relieved to see, although an uncommon looking one at that. He looked like one of the Chasind from the south, but the cadence of his speech was that of the flat-ears from Denerim. ‘Three to one? That’s hardly sporting. Surely the boy couldn’t have offended all three of you so terribly that your pride requires you to gang up on him?’

‘It’s none of your concern, elf,’ the largest guard barked.

‘Of course it’s my concern,’ the elf protested. ‘Clearly this boy is ever so dangerous if it requires three of Gwaren’s best to subdue him. Shall I help you wrestle him to the ground? I’m sure there are some ropes around here somewhere…’

‘Your insolent tongue begs to be cut from your mouth, stranger,’ one of the other guards snapped, hand on his sword. 

‘My tongue is merely seeking a peaceful solution to this whole situation,’ the elf protested. ‘Come now, good sers, let the boy get back to his errands and why don’t you head over to the _Mabari’s_ _Maw_ for a drink? Discounted of course, the barkeeper’s an old friend of mine…tell him Tabris sent you and said everything was on the house.’

The guards murmured amongst themselves, and their leader levelled a gaze at the elf – Tabris. Lilian held her breath, wondering if the soldiers would decide to take him up on his offer, or simply beat him and continue with their plans for the boy.

An unkind smile appeared on the largest guard’s face.

‘Very well, elf – if you think the boys indiscretions are so miniscule, maybe you wouldn’t object to taking his punishment for him,’ the largest guard smirked. 

Tabris didn’t hesitate before replying. ‘I have no objection.’

‘I didn’t think you would,’ the guard leader smirked. ‘’Nor will you object to the little bastard watching you take his punishment, will you?’

Tabris’s face twitched somewhat, but he nodded. ‘Of course not.’

From the tenseness of his shoulders, Lilian could tell that he was not as easy-going about the entire situation as his tone would suggest.

‘Good. Now, as the brat tracked mud all across my boots, I think it only fair that they be cleaned properly. Your clothes look hardy enough to scrub the dirt off. Get to it.’

‘Yes, ser.’

To Lilian’s horror, the dark-skinned elf pulled off his shirt and vest and set to work scrubbing the tops of the guard’s leather boots. Although his expression remained carefully neutral the entire time, she could feel him radiating anger even from where she watched the entire debacle.

She felt sick and angry at the sight. What the hell was he doing, just going along with this?

‘See, boy? There’s no accounting for having pride,’ the guard told the elven boy. ‘But, just to drive that lesson home – Tabris, was it?’

A tense grunt. ‘Ser.’

‘Bursting into matters that don’t concern you is very rude – it hurt my feelings,’ the man drawled. ‘Kiss my boots in apology.’

Tabris finally stiffened at this directive, and Lilian’s heart sank because he would surely refuse this order, whether he was trying to protect the young boy or not.

Lilian’s fingers tightened on the dagger. If his refused, and it came to blows, she wanted to be able to intervene.

Even if it cost her in the end.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **AN:** GO BACK AND READ FROM THE BEGINNING! I reformatted and lengthened the fic. I know…you guys hate it when I do this, but I’m very much a write-and-edit-as-I-go author…In an ideal world I could have everything written and edited before I even post it, but it was hard enough to find a beta reader willing to take the time to edit my completed works, let alone the WIP ones…And I’m still looking for a Brit-picker, so there :P Besides, if I did it the proper way, I would have significantly fewer stories to offer you. Probably would only have From This Day Forward and Kindred Spirits finished, never mind the ones you guys are actually waiting around to read *cough* Crossed Wires *cough*. So bear with me as I edit and go…and at least know that once something has been completed and edited, I’ll never touch it again :) 

**_ The Saltpool  
_ ** **_by ErtheChilde_ **

_‘Fear makes companions of all of us. Fear is with all of us, and always will be. Just like that other sensation that lives with it: Hope.’_

**TWO**

The Doctor was momentarily torn between impulses – to hold his arm up to block any downward swing, to try to grab the axe once it came within range, to once more cover Rose to protect her from the blow, to examine the origin of the twinge of pain – 

As it was, none of those seemed immediately necessary, as the dwarf took a step forward and positively snarled at them, ‘Did it injure you?’

‘What?’ Rose gasped from beneath the Doctor’s chest, at the same time he insisted, ‘No. We managed to keep ahead of it.’

‘Hmph,’ the dwarf grunted and lowered his weapon a bit. ‘Noticed that. You let the sodding bastard straight at us. Know what damage that could’ve done?’

‘Sorry, didn’t have much of a choice,’ the Doctor replied, sincere but with an edge to his words as he eased his body away from Rose’s so that she could sit up. ‘Busy running for our lives and all.’

The dwarf spit on the ground at that and wandered over to where the rest of his comrades were quickly fetching wood; likely they wanted to burn the thing as soon as possible, and the Doctor didn’t blame them. But he had something more important to focus on for the time being.

 ‘Alright?’ he addressed Rose.

‘Yeah,’ she mustered a trembling smile, but it faded almost instantly, her eyes resting on something below his waist. ‘But you’re not.’

The Doctor glance down and realized the reason for the burning sensation.

An arrow had punctured his thigh just above the knee joint.

_There’s a joke in here somewhere, I know it,_ he thought grimly.

‘Not a problem,’ he assured her. ‘Once we remove the arrow, it’ll be healed up in a day or two. Not even that once we get back to the TARDIS. Tissue regenerator’ll fix that in minutes.’

‘We?’ Rose echoed, eyes flitting nervously to the bolt of wood protruding from the Doctor’s leg. 

They had both seen worse in the last month alone, but Rose was not a natural when it came to dealing with injuries and trauma. She’d acquitted herself well in the past when there was no alternative, but she was still ill-at-ease when confronted by such a situation.

That would change the longer she was with him, he knew, considering his adventures weren’t always bloodless. A part of him was sad about that, knowing that this life would change her into someone she had never expected to be.

‘Well, me and whoever’s gonna get this out,’ he nodded down at the arrow. ‘Hasn’t gone all the way through, or it’d just be a matter of breaking the head off and removing the shaft.’ At her expression, he added, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not asking you.’

‘But if you need me to –’

He shook his head. ‘Need someone with a strong grip, either to do the deed or hold my leg in place.’

‘But –’

‘I can do that,’ a sullen-faced man with black hair and ragged leather armour offered, sauntering away from the rest of the ragtag sentries. ‘It was my arrow that hit you, so it’s the least I can offer in recompense.’

‘Don’t worry about it – trust me when I say I’ve had worse,’ the Doctor smirked painfully. ‘Who’re you then?’

‘Henrik,’ the man said, with no hint of welcome in his voice. 

‘Really? That’s good – seem to have good luck when it comes to Henriks,’ the Doctor said brightly, winking at Rose who offered him a wan smile in reply.

The man settled himself by the Doctor’s knee and examined the wound, while Rose crept out of the way to hover anxiously at the Doctor’s other side. ‘You’re lucky – or not, depending on how you see it. It’s not very deep.’

‘Meaning it’s better to dig out than push through,’ the Doctor sighed, feeling Rose wince rather than seeing it.

‘Mm-hm,’ Henrik nodded, already pulling a knife and an earthen-looking injury kit out of his satchel. A moment later, he also drew out a small hip flask, which he held out to the Doctor. ‘For the pain.’

‘Wouldn’t do me any good,’ the Doctor told him. ‘Just go ahead and get to it. Rose, might not want to look.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Rose –’

‘I’ve seen worse,’ Rose said firmly, though she was pale and her hand snaked out to grab hold of his.

He offered her a quick squeeze, though whether that was in acknowledgement or reassurance or thanks, he wasn’t sure because he was distracted by the sudden sharp jab of pain as Henrik cut the wooden shaft down as much as he dared.

‘If you two were smart, you’d turn around and go back wherever you came from,’ he said quietly, after a moment, his knife’s blade now digging into the fleshy part of the Doctor’s _vastus_ _lateralis_. ‘Take your chances with the Dalish instead of placing your bets on this place saving you. There’s too many refugees as it is and not enough ships to carry us away. We’re all sitting ducks, waiting for the darkspawn to pick us off.’

The Doctor winced as Henrik began to slice the skin around the arrowhead, and forced out a question, ‘You lot shouldn’t get many in these parts? If memory – ’ He couldn’t help a surprised Gallifreyan curse escaping as the knife edge a bit too close to his kneecap, ‘ – ah, if memory serves, we’re in Gwaren. Only port on the outskirts of the Brecelian Forest I know of, anyhow, and its remote enough you shouldn’t have to worry.’

‘Of course you’re in Gwaren,’ Henrik shot him a funny look, taking a pause from butchering the Doctor’s leg for a moment to press a blood-stained rag against the wound. ‘And being remote helps no one during a Blight.’

The Doctor inhaled sharply, both at the revelation and because the man had abruptly twisted the arrowhead out of the wound. He then brought some greenish herbs and roots out of his injury kit and began to crush them into the Doctor’s wound, stemming the blood flow.

Rose opened her mouth, but he cut her off before she could ask the question, giving her a quick shake of the head to indicate he would explain later. ‘There’s Blight here? The bear wasn’t an isolated incident?’

Everyone on Thedas knew what a Blight was, and he wasn’t keen on people who were already suspicious of strangers becoming more so. Not until he was far enough away from them that it couldn’t affect Rose or himself. The safest bet was to simply pretend ignorance. 

Still, Henrik narrowed his eyes. ‘You been living under a rock the past few months?’

_And there’s the distrust_ , the Doctor mentally sighed. Out loud, he replied, ‘We’ve been travelling a lot. And we haven’t run into many people to give us news like that. It’s really a Blight? Not just a large raid?’

Henrik snorted. ‘That’s what everyone thought, ‘til Ostagar.’

‘Ostagar?’ the Doctor repeated, dread coalescing in his stomachs. If they truly had landed in a Blight, one during which Ostagar was a major battle, thing might just be worse than he had thought. 

‘Mm-hm,’ Henrik answered, finishing his bandaging of the Doctor’s leg. ‘The damned Grey Wardens talked the King into facing the horde there – they likely told him some pretty lies about honor and glory and how the darkspawn force wasn’t really that large. An easy battle, they were expecting. And in a single night the horde massacred ‘em.’

The Doctor held his tongue, not wanting to correct the story. He knew what had actually happened in this timeline, but trying to explain that might end with a sword aimed at his throat while he tried to defend his views. Not a good idea in the best of times, let alone with a companion by his side and an injury to be healed.

‘If our Teryn hadn’t pulled his troops out at the last second, we wouldn’t have anyone to defend us if the bloody Orlesians decide to invade again,’ Henrik went on, putting his supplies away and standing up.

‘I’ve got to help get rid of the rest of that carcass, and then it’s back to sentry duty,’ he told them morosely. ‘Trust me, stranger – unless you know someone in the port who can get you out of this Maker-forsaken shithole, you’ll take your wife and head back in the direction you came. If you’re lucky, the horde won’t have made it far enough east to block the road to Denerim.’

It was a mark of how uneasy Rose was with the situation that she didn’t make a joke about them once again being mistaken for a married couple. Instead, as soon as Henrik had moved out of hearing distance, she whispered, ‘What’s going on? What’s all this “blight” stuff mean, anyway?’

‘It means we have to get back to the TARDIS and away from this place,’ he replied, getting heavily to his feet and wincing as he was forced to put weight on his injured leg. ‘As soon as possible.’ 

· ΘΣ ·

Tabris felt frozen, poised before the expectant and proud faces of the guardsmen as their directive hung in the air. The elven boy they still had a hold of, buckling under the meaty hand of the man who held him in place, was watching Tabris with an expression of horror and resignation. 

It would be a simple thing, to move forward and liberate one of their swords. They wouldn’t expect an elf to be capable of wielding one, and even if they did he knew he was fast. It would be the work of a minute or so to disarm them and wipe those arrogant smirks from their faces.

If they had been common cutpurses, he wouldn’t even be hesitating.

But they were guards and, unless he was to kill them, they and their comrades would be after him before he could set foot outside the town. Antagonizing the law would be like signing his own death warrant. A human might be given a chance to explain his side of the story, to produce witnesses, but he was a foreign elf lurking outside an Alienage without even a job now. 

His knowledge of what the fastest resolution to the situation warred with the pride he had literally had beaten into him.

_If the Wardens could see me now_ , he thought bitterly. _Just as well they’re all dead…_

Then again, he had spent enough time with the departed order to know that they didn’t care about pride or honour so much as achieving their ends. They admitted criminals and traitors and apostates to their ranks without a care to social convention or law, all in the name of the greater good. Had he not witnessed with his own eyes how a Warden recruit had shown sympathy to a man who had been arrested for desertion?

Tabris’ eyes flickered once more to the boy, who obviously expected him to refuse the guards’ directive. The expression was one which Tabris had worn himself, long ago; in that situation, he had been abandoned to his fate for the sake of “elven pride” and subjected to abuses and indignities that sometimes woke him at night. His humiliation was a fair trade for a boy’s innocence.

And so with a stiff back and burning cheeks, Tabris forced himself back to his knees and pressed his mouth to the guard’s dirty boots.

_Maker help you if you order me to do anything else,_ he silently vowed as he got back to his feet and began to put his shirts back on.

Perhaps his prayer was heard, because the guards simply guffawed at him and cuffed the boy roughly across the head.

‘Get out of here, whelp!’ the foremost ordered, and the kid had the sense to take off as fast as his legs could carry him. ‘And watch where you’re going next time! It’s not every day that one of you disloyal gutter rats actually stands up for another.’ He narrowed his eyes at Tabris. ‘And it’s not every day that’ll work, stranger.’

‘Ser,’ Tabris acknowledged through gritted teeth.

‘Get out of my town, knife-ear,’ the guard ordered. ‘Or next time I’ll think of something more imaginative than kissing my footwear.’

‘On my way out,’ Tabris vowed.

The guard gave him one more sharp look of dislike, and then motioned for his fellows to leave with him.

Tabris was left standing for a long moment, fists clenched. Once their footsteps faded from his hearing, he finally relaxed.

_At least no one else saw that –_

‘I can’t believe what you just did!’

He whirled around, eyes flicking to the edge of the alley where a dark-haired young woman was staring at him, mouth agape and a basket tipped over at her feet, as though she had dropped it in shock.

Tabris shrugged in faked modest nonchalance. ‘It was nothing –’

‘Oh, it was something,’ she argued crossly, and he noticed that her accent was noticeably Orlesian in its cadence. ‘It was you debasing our kind in the most disgusting of ways!’

‘Sorry, _what_?’ He stared at her, caught up short. ‘Did you miss the fact that I just saved someone?’

‘By bending your neck like a coward?’ she sneered. ‘I wouldn’t call that “saving”.’

‘Clearly you don’t know what they were going to make him do, then,’ he retorted, narrowing his eyes. ‘Trust me, that little _indignity_ on my part saved him a good deal of hurt. Possibly his innocence, too.’

She seemed caught off-guard by this, but swallowed and renewed her glaring efforts.

‘You’ve done nothing but teach a young boy that the best way for an elf to live is to bow to the _shems_ _’_ every whim! To just give in!’

‘If he wants to survive, he needs to know how to pick his battles,’ Darrian replied stubbornly.

‘Did your masters teach you that, in the big city?’ she scorned, and when he looked surprised, she added, ‘I can smell it all over you. You stink of subservience, like all you flat-ears.’

He felt the blood drain from his face and he took a step forward.

‘Don’t pretend you’re better than me, as if you don’t live in an Alienage as well,’ he snapped. ‘At least I’m not a traitor to my country, _Orlesian_.’

She recoiled as if he had slapped her.

‘The city taught me many lessons,’ he went on, ‘but subservience wasn’t one of them, I guarantee you that. I learned very early to pick my battles.’

‘Turn tail, is more like,’ she disdained. 

‘You want walk away now,’ he told her quietly.

She seemed to consider challenging that, but maybe some of the fury in his eyes warned her not to test him on this. And so, instead, she hefted her basket and stalked toward the mouth of the alley.

 ‘You’re a shame upon your ancestors,’ she threw back at him, carefully not looking back at him before she disappeared.

Once the aggravating young woman was gone, however, Darrian felt some of the fight leave him. 

Maybe she was right.

Maybe he should have fought, hang the consequences to himself. His sister would have fought – likely she would call him a traitor to their race as well, if she had been there to witness that.

What good was it to hold himself to the standards of an order that had been branded traitors to the crown?

He exhaled in frustration, pinching at the bridge of his nose. Now wasn’t the time to question himself. If anything had compromised his morals lately, it was remaining in this Makerforsaken town. The sooner he got out of it, the better.

Resolving not to get involved in anyone else’s business until Gwaren was far behind him, Tabris once more headed for the city’s exit. He wasn’t keen on attempting to brave the Brecelian Forest again – he’d been delirious and half-dead the last time he’d come through that way, though, so he should have a fighting chance.

And unlike the humans who ventured there, he was less likely to be killed on sight by one of the Dalish.

He rounded an alleyway that would provide a shortcut to the town centre, and froze when he found his way blocked by two or three rough and dirty looking men. A quick scan of their scabbards showed him they were armed, and judging from the assorted scars and tattoos adorning their hands and faces, he had either stumbled into a shakedown operation or a meeting of the Blackstone Irregulars.

And from the way they were sizing him up, eyes gleaming like they had just found an easy mark, he realized it probably wasn’t the second option.

‘Today is really, really not my day, is it?’ he complained. ‘What are the odds that you boys are a benevolent mercenary group looking to hire?’

‘Pretty low, Knife-Ear,’ the leader of the motley crew leered, showing off one gold tooth in the midst of several blackened and broken ones. He heard the approach of two other bodies behind him, other lackeys that were prepared to take him down if Tabris tried to back out of the alley.

‘Sorry, lads – got to say, I’m used to a better class of villain,’ he said lightly, raising his hands in what would appear to be conciliation. ‘And you’ve got nothing on the darkspawn. Except possibly the smell.’

The bandit leader chuckled darkly at that, and then stalked over and backhanded Tabris across the face. The blow sent him buckling to his knees.

‘You’ve got a mouth on you – that’s good. We’ll get some use out of that before we slit your throat,’ he leered, and Tabris felt him looming over him. ‘Now empty your pockets unless you want your death to take a lot longer than it needs to.’

‘I would,’ Tabris told them seriously, ‘except you made one wrong decision here – well, two.’

‘Oh yeah?’ the leader chortled, clearly thinking this was just a bit of bluster from a corpse-to-be.

‘Yes – see, first of all – ’ In a quick movement, Tabris struck out with one hand, knocking the knife and the hand that held it away from his face. With his other hand, he slid the man’s sword from its scabbard and sliced upward, ‘ – you left your weapon within easy reach.’

The man gurgled through a ruined throat and fell backwards. His two cronies swore in shock and pulled out their own weapons to attack.

The embarrassment and anger of all the events of Tabris’ day had culminated in this moment, and he finally had an outlet to deal with them.

‘Second of all,’ he continued darkly, bracing himself to meet his opponents head-on, ‘you didn’t choose a spot with witnesses.’ 

· ΘΣ ·

‘Explain,’ Rose commanded.

She had put up with the Doctor’s evasiveness before when there seemed to be a reason for it, but now that they were more or less out of earshot, she wasn’t going to let him keep her in the dark. He was worried, and that usually came down to him blowing something massively out of proportion or some universe-ending danger that only he could stop. 

In either case, she needed the whole story before she could decide the proper reaction.

‘I thought I’d landed us on Thedas before any of the Blights,’ he answered, apologetic and not really answering.

‘And a Blight is…?’ she prompted, not letting him get away with that.

‘In this land, it’s a period of time during which darkspawn –’

‘Dark _what_?’

‘Darkspawn. Sort of like a cross between a zombie and an orc from your fantasy films – only they’re a lot faster and a lot less civilized,’ the Doctor clarified. ‘They live underground and usually pop up every few decades to raid the surface. But during a Blight, their numbers are so high that they can devastate entire countries with the disease they bring.’

‘And that’s what happened to that bear, then?’ Rose asked, glancing over to where the corpse as being lit with torches. ‘It got infected by these dark things?’

‘Yes.’

‘And they were worried we had gotten that infection.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And all that bit about their king and stuff? What’s all that about?’ Rose hadn’t missed the way the Doctor’s expression had turned dark when Henrik had spoken of recent events, which meant he knew something about this time period that he didn’t like.

‘It’s about us being in a time period I’d rather not be in,’ he grumbled, trying to stand up. She hurried to help him to his feet, draping his arm around her shoulder and trying to take as much of his weight as she could. ‘At this point in history it’s been about a year since the first signs of Blight. It started in the southern reaches of the continent and the mountains, so no one really noticed at first. Not very populated. But a small force of Grey Wardens –’

‘And who are they, then?’ she interjected, knowing he would simply go on if she didn’t stop him.

‘They’re a group of warriors that exist only to destroy darkspawn and protect the world from the threat of Blights,’ the Doctor told her. ‘When this one started, they approached the King of Ferelden in an attempt to get a jump on it. Stop it before it could start.’

‘But that didn’t happen?’

‘No,’ the Doctor said darkly. ‘The darkspawn force that they encountered at Ostagar was larger than expected. Only a handful of people survived that.’

‘What happened?’

He snorted. ‘A good deal of underestimating the enemy, as Henrik said, but the rest of it was…well, let’s just say human pettiness played its part.’ At her confused look, he shook his head. ‘Best not go into details where the wrong sort of people can hear. In fact –’ He straightened up again, looking back up the hill they had run down and into the forest, ‘ – let’s wait until we get back to the TARDIS for the end of that story.’

Rose followed his gaze, and despite the tiny spark of fear that had taken residence in her gut from their near mauling and the Doctor’s uneasiness, she wasn’t keen on returning to the foreboding forest just yet.

‘And how exactly do you plan to do that?’ Rose demanded. ‘You’re hurt.’

‘Hurt, not crippled. If we leave now –’

‘What if there are more infected animals out there in the woods?’ she asked. ‘You might not be so fast this time, and that’s what saved us before.’ She was under no illusions there. If the Doctor hadn’t set such a punishing pace, she’d have her insides decorating the forest floor right now. ‘We should at least stay here until your knee’s healed up.’

‘Which it will be in a few hours,’ he argued. ‘By then it’ll be dark, and trust me, going through that forest at night is the last thing you want to do.’

‘Then we stay the night and go in the morning,’ Rose said reasonably. 

The Doctor opened his mouth, brows drawn into a frown and obviously wanting to argue, but Rose cut him off. ‘Doctor, I get it. This place puts you off. But we don’t exactly have a lot of choice right now.’

His shoulders sagged the slightest bit, like he knew she was right, but the tension didn’t go away.

‘Accommodations aren’t likely to be up to your usual standards,’ he pointed out, like it was the last vestiges of an argument. 

‘Please, anything’s got to be better than a Persian army barracks,’ she said, trying to sound as if she was merely brushing off a mildly concerning issues.

He still looked like he was trying to come up with an argument against this idea, but was interrupted when the dwarf from earlier stalked toward them.

‘She say you’re a healer?’ he demanded without preamble.

The Doctor hesitated for the barest hint of a second, before pasting his usual disarming grin on his face. ‘Sort of, yeah.’

‘Because we need one and the nughumpers in town are being damn thrifty with the ones they’ve got,’ the dwarf went on. ‘And they’re not even the useful kind, if you know what I mean – the Teryn took the only mages the Chantry ever let out when he went to Ostagar.’

_Mages_? _Like, wizards?_ Rose thought, eyes wide. She knew the Doctor had talked about magic before, but the idea of being in a place where magic actually existed was mindboggling. 

‘Been known to bandage a few hurts in my day,’ the Doctor allowed, a bit guardedly.

‘Then you’re of use,’ the man said bluntly. ‘We can’t take any more refugees with no talent, but a case could be made for a healer to stay here.’ He eyed Rose. ‘And your woman, I s’ppose.’

It was on her tongue to deny it, but she stopped herself. Considering the little white lie might be the difference between being allowed into the tent city and left to find somewhere to kip outside of it, she figured that was the wisest choice. At the Doctor’s wry look, she knew he was thinking the same thing.

_Better than prostitute,_ Rose thought, rolling her eyes at him pointedly. 

If he had anything to add to that, it was lost when one of the refugee camp sentries approached him – Rose was surprised to see that this one was a large boned woman with a crossbow strapped to her back.

‘You can’t just let any outsider in who wants to set up shop, Vetek,’ she declared. ‘Especially not without talking it over with the rest of us.’

The bearded man snorted and shot her a look that was amused yet cold. ‘And who d’you think you are to say who’s allowed in my city and who ain’t?’

‘It isn’t your city, it’s the Teryn’s, and we don’t even know if he’s a healer – he could just be lying!’

‘My ancestors were here when yours were still chucking spears at each other in their smallclothes,’ the dwarf replied calmly. ‘Meaning I’ve got more say than you do. And I say they stay.’

The woman shot him a hard look, then pursed her lips. ‘Fine. But if they bring pestilence into this place, let it be on your head.’

She hefted her crossbow and stalked off.

Vetek grinned at her back and turned back to the Doctor and Rose. ‘Don’t mind her. She’s always like that, to everyone.’ His expression became hard again. ‘But mark me, healer, just ‘cause I got you in, don’t think it’s a boon. You want to stay, you make yourself useful. Otherwise, go back to wherever you came from. We’ve got enough problems here to last a lifetime – even if ours isn’t going to be a very long one.’

‘We don’t aim to be here very long,’ the Doctor said calmly, meeting the dwarf’s gaze. ‘This whole business was just a very, very wrong turn.’

‘Heh – you’re not the first to have said that to me,’ the dwarf said, and spit again. He turned away from them and motioned for them to follow. ‘Well, come on. There’re camp beds set up closer to the city for the sick and wounded, bet you can find some space for yourselves there too. Just don’t expect much privacy, it’s hard to come by even in the best of times.’ 

The Doctor and Rose exchanged looks. Rose could tell he was still not happy with the way things had turned out, but at the moment there was very little they could do.

‘S’just a night,’ she told him, placating.

He made a noncommittal noise, and allowed her to help him limp into the refugee camp. He either wasn’t convinced, or there was something else bothering him beyond the business with the Blight and the darkspawn. 

She just wished he would tell her what it was.

· ΘΣ ·

Fifteen minutes after she left the dark-skinned stranger in the back alley, Lilian still couldn’t fight down the frustrated anger. Her stomach churned at the act she had witnessed – the shameful display – and then the terse interaction after it. 

There had been something in the stranger – _Tabris_ _was his name, wasn’t it?_ – as he argued with her, something that had disturbed her more than his insults about her background. She was at least used to the latter. 

People in Gwaren were used to her and no longer commented on it, and those who did were swiftly reminded of how her parents had been some of Teryn Loghain’s most trusted allies. Her father had been one of the dreaded Night Elves that helped to win the uprising against the Orlesian invaders thirty years before. Her mother had been an Orlesian servant who turned on her previous master for a chance at a better life and in doing so saved Loghain’s life.

All Lilian’s life, people commented on hers and Erlina’s way of speaking, and when they were younger they had both tried to rid themselves of any traces of their accent. Upon their mothers’ death from the sweating sickness, the hated reminder Orlais became the only link that remained of their family. It was the only thing that put a smile on their father’s face in the years before he drank himself to death.

Otherwise, his eyes were wells of pain and the hint of something else. A sword that had once been sharp and was simply waiting for the next battle.

Tabris had had the same look in his eyes. Like he had seen things she couldn’t comprehend.

For a moment, she felt doubt.

What if he had been right? He had intimated a worse fate for the boy he had helped, and she heard horror stories of the behaviour that occurred in the Alienages of Denerim and Highever. Gwaren's was so small, and the Teryn had always ensured fair treatment of his elven citizens – and harsh punishments for anyone who didn’t abide by that.

But in recent months, his influence was too far away to be effective and his regent utterly uncaring to the plights of the elves. What if conditions were becoming as bad as what the city elf was used to?

_No. That won’t happen here_ , she told herself. _Gwaren’s_ _citizens would put a stop to it. It’s only because of the war that things are so uneasy right now. Once people find their footing again, things will go back to the way they were._

She steadfastly ignored the doubting voice at the back of her mind, deciding that as she was still so upset about the day’s events that she would try to find the boy Tabris had helped. She would track him down and offer him a place to stay if he didn’t have one, and show him the proper way that their kind should behave in the face of _shem_ idiocy.

That decided, Lilian headed for the edge of the city. There was no wall around Gwaren – never had been – but since the refugees had begun to arrive, an ineffectual barrier made up of carts and crates had been built up in a way that clearly delineated the town proper and the tent city.

‘Greetings, Lilian,’ one of the town guards declared when he saw her approach. ‘Come to bring more hope to the hopeless?’

‘I have no choice when no one else will, Tom,’ she said heavily.

Tom was one of the few – in fact, the _only_ – soldier guarding Gwaren that she actually trusted. He had been the only one to actually volunteer to keep the peace between townsfolk and refugees several months ago. The rest of his contingent did so with a great deal of reluctance and annoyance, as evidenced by the judgemental leer his comrade shot her way.

‘Keep it short today,’ he advised her. ‘There’s sickness among the refugees, and the regent’s considering a quarantine. If the order comes while you’re still out there, you won’t get back inside.’

Lilian’s stomach jumped unpleasantly. ‘But how are they supposed to get help if no one’s allowed in or out?’

‘Does it matter?’ Tom’s fellow guard demanded. ‘They’re all dead anyhow. Least if there’s a quarantine we can get back to our actual jobs.’

She shot him a hateful glance, and hefted her basket.

It was hard not to feel hopeless in the wake of such indifference. Her town had once been a fiercely proud, beautiful town to live in and it was becoming a cesspool of rot and despair. And it would only get worse the longer no one bothered to help.

The affluent members of Gwaren’s townsfolk were so worried for themselves, they didn’t think it was their look out to care about the poor souls that had fled here in the hopes of salvation.

_Well, I’m here now_ , she decided. _And I’ll be here as long as I can._

She set to work seeking out those who obviously needed the help, seeking out first the elven families with children and then those who had drifted in on their own. If she was lucky there would be some warm clothing left over that she could leave with the human and dwarven refugees, but they weren’t her priority. The Chantry cared for them, and she refused to feel guilty for prioritizing her own kind over others. 

_Maker knows the shem do that all the time_ , she thought angrily.

At the end of her rounds, she had found her way to the large tent where the refugees had set up a makeshift ward. Men, women and children lay upon crude cots, coughing from sickness in their lungs and fevers brought on by both the cold and lack of cleanliness. Several beds away, two new refugees were being led inside by Vetek, one of the dwarves that had volunteered. Unlike the humans, the Gwaren dwarves were a lot less choosy about who they protected.

Lilian considered the newcomers warily. A blond human woman about her age dressed in strange, colourful garb and an older human male, dressed completely in black.

_Maybe she’s a freeholder’s daughter and he’s her guard_ , Lilian thought, and scowled at the thought. If there were any more nobility around, they would demand their needs be met before everyone else’s. Nobles were selfish like that.

By the fifth bed, she had no more clothing left to give out, and so set about trying to help the bedridden refugees as best she could. She was no healer, though, and could do very little but try to move people into more comfortable positions and fetch water to cool fevered foreheads. 

As she was doing this for pockmarked older man she had never seen before while his wife knelt worriedly by his side, Vetek called her name. ‘Lilian! Come over here, I want to introduce you to some new people.’

She set her jaw, wondering if he was about to ask her to wait on the newcomers, and forced a smile in his direction.

‘Give me a moment, Vetek, I’m just finishing up here and then –’

She found her hands shoved away and looked down, the ill man she had been tending to staring at her in something like horror and revulsion.

‘Get away from me, filth!’ the man cried, pulling away from her.

‘Ser, calm down,’ she told him evenly, reaching for him again. ‘It’s just the fever, it’s making you delirious. I’m just trying to –’

‘Ain’t no fever, you Orlesian wench!’

A lump formed in her throat and she fought back her instinctive response to that.

‘Really, ser, I’m just trying to help –’

‘Right off a cliff I’ll expect! I knows what Orlesians are like,’ the man snarled. ‘I fought in them battles, and I’ll die before I’m treated by an Orlesian Knife-Eared whore!’

She didn’t even have a chance to get angry as he flailed and shoved her backward, watery eyes fixed on her with no little amount of hatred.

The other patients were waking now, looking to see what had caused the disturbance, and outside of the healer’s tent people were trying to look inside. 

‘Your kind’s the reason the King’s dead!’ his wife cried. ‘The Teryn said so himself, didn’t he? The Grey Wardens was working with the Orlesians in order to kill the king!’

‘Somebody get this bit of filth out of here!’ the man continued wildly. ‘She’ll set fire to this place while we sleep, lead the darkspawn to us in the night!

Her jaw dropped, too flabbergasted to even consider defending herself. 

It was utter hysterical twaddle, but his fervour was upsetting the others in the vicinity. Even people she had been looking after for several weeks now were becoming agitated, while others refused to meet her eye. She knew how desperate people were to find someone to blame for their problems, why not her? 

The sick man advanced on her, taking a wobbling step forward like he was about to kick her.

 

 


End file.
